


Patron Saint of Lost Things

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cuddles, Framework Trauma, Hurt/Comfort, Leo Fitz & Daisy Johnson - mentioned, M/M, Nightmare, Set during 5x05, UA, non graphic mentions of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 04:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14783784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: This time when Fitz wakes from his nightmare, Hunter is there to reassure and help him through it.-Est. Fitzhunter. Set during 5x05. Angst/Hurt/Comfort. Rated T.





	Patron Saint of Lost Things

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AchillesMonkey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AchillesMonkey/gifts).



> Prompts: "I'm not going to hurt you" and "it's okay to cry."
> 
> I have been wanting to write a FitzHunter 5x05 UA since it aired and these prompts gave me an excuse to knit my pieces together and turn it into something. Thank you! I haven't written for FitzHunter in a long time and I loved getting back into it. Feel free to send me prompts here or on tumblr (@theclaravoyant) and I'll see what I can do.
> 
> It's in the tags but worth mentioning again: be warned this fic has non-graphic references to Framework trauma, and also non-graphic references to a nightmare which resembles 5x14 by pure coincidence.
> 
> Established romantic FitzHunter, but otherwise canon compat. Rated T. Angst/Hurt/Comfort. Enjoy!

_I love you._

_I know._

_-_

Fitz woke with a start, his whole body screaming _DANGER. RESIST!_

He flailed for a weapon, for an arm to twist, for something to shove away from himself and give him a few more milliseconds to get his bearings. He found a body close to his, an arm outstretched, unflinching at his frenzy. Not taking advantage of his confusion to attack. 

“Woah, hey, I’m not going to hurt you,” Hunter promised. Fitz stilled, eyeing him, uncomfortably aware of his own fear as his heart pounded so strongly in his chest it shook his body. 

“Are you real?” 

“Cross my heart,” Hunter swore. As if to prove it, he slowly moved his outstretched hand to Fitz’s grounding shoulder, and squeezed.

The release of tension was palpable, weight slipping off Fitz’s shoulder with a sigh. But with the calming of his fears came a clarity of thought; of memory. It was still a dream, fragmented and all the more haunting for it, but he remembered one thing. Just one thing. 

“You okay, mate?” Hunter checked. “Do you remember where we are?” 

“Daisy,” Fitz muttered, trying to pinch the vision out from behind his eyelids. “In my dream, I was- or he was, I don’t really know…” 

“Who was?” 

“The other me. The him.” Fitz waved his hand, frustrated. “The me from the Framework. The Doctor. I had a dream that, that- I was him, or he was me, or something, and I couldn’t stop him. He wanted to hurt Daisy. I couldn’t…” 

 _Danger. Resist._ That’s where it had come from. But whose emotions had he been channeling? His own, or Daisy’s? It had been his hands, after all, that had held the scalpel. He himself who had been the danger. 

Fitz swallowed a bitter taste as Hunter shuffled their sleeping bags around to sit beside him, and bumped his shoulder encouragingly.

“It’s okay,” he promised. “That wasn’t real.” 

“I know, but…”

Fitz bobbed his head noncommittally: not quite a nod, not quite a shake. Hunter felt his blood chill a little. They had come close a few times before but they’d always diverted into something else, something specific. Aida. Jemma. Radcliffe. Now here they were right at the edge of Talking About It, and it was the middle of the night and there was nothing else to do but step over the line. 

“Was it a memory, do you think?” Hunter asked, more solemnly this time. “Did you- the other version of you- actually hurt her in that Framework place?” 

“No. Daisy told me I didn’t. I just hurt people _like_ her. Like Lincoln.”

Hunter’s eyes widened a little, and Fitz nodded and confirmed:

“Oh, yeah. Killed him, apparently. I don’t remember. _He_ didn’t care enough to remember.” 

He tapped his temple, as if it concealed a pocket of his brain called _The Doctor_ that, try though he might, he could not pull out and throw away. He tapped over and over, until he was almost outright hitting, gritting his teeth as tears welled in frustration at his inability to escape. But Hunter caught his hand and eased it down, squeezing and playing with his fingers until Fitz could catch his breath, and then some. 

“I think your poor head’s been through enough, mate,” Hunter cajoled. “No need for that, alright? And why are you so obsessed with nutting out this dream?” 

“Because of what it means!” Fitz insisted. “I think it means I could hurt her, I would hurt her, if the circumstances were different. It means…” 

 _It means I’m a bad person._ The words died on his tongue; he’d been told off enough already for saying them, for thinking them, but still the feeling wouldn’t go away. 

Hunter though, rather than scolding him or slathering him with pity, simply laughed. It was only a little laugh, a gentle laugh, but it was refreshing. 

“Mate, you and I could be sipping piña coladas on a beach in the Bahamas if the circumstances were different,” he remarked. “You could have retired after that brain injury and moved to that orangutan sanctuary in Sumatra if the circumstances were different. Hell, you could’ve ended up with Jemma ‘stead of me if the bloody circumstances were different enough! That’s the beauty of circumstances. Best we can do is make do with what we’ve got.” 

Even though tears of frustration and shame stung them, Fitz snorted and rolled his eyes. If anything was the definition of _making do_ it was them right now, huddled in the middle of a bunch of shelves of weapons and food and god knows what else, with two sleeping bags, a blanket, and a lantern that they had borrowed from the survivalist supplies on those very shelves. They’d escaped a prison, stolen a plane, and were trying to rescue their team with the help of a tiny psychic and… well, not much else. Unless you counted what was basically a drawing of a rock. 

At this, despair began to sink into his bones like the cold air. 

“’m sorry,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “I’m just… not sure who I am anymore. That’s all.” 

“That’s all?” Hunter pressed his lips together, and wrapped his arms around Fitz shoulders. The time for lighthearted comfort had passed, and now there was nothing else for it but to infuse Fitz with so much love and understanding and comfort that he cold not possibly deny it. He took a deep breath. 

“Fitz. Hey. First of all, you have just come out of six months in solitary, which _by itself_ is capable of driving plenty of good soldiers mad. Give yourself some credit. Second, you came to solitary confinement straight out of living a double life of _epically_ messed up proportions. Your whole _life_ was rewritten. Your dad was an ass. Your mom was dead. Aida was… whatever the hell she was… What I’m saying is, it’s a lot. Anyone in your situation would be doubting themselves. You just can’t let it stop you. We’re going to find Daisy, we’re going to find all of them, and everything’s going to be okay.” 

“What if it’s not?” 

“It will be,” Hunter promised. “It always is, in the end. If it’s not, it isn’t the end yet. Besides, we found each other again, didn’t we? That’s not nothing.” 

Fitz nodded, but nodding was not enough. Tears choked any words that might have found their way to his throat, to speak to the overwhelming relief, the cosmic gratitude, the love he felt for having someone’s arms around him after all this time alone. For those arms to be Hunter’s – it was nothing short of a miracle, and he was wasting it fretting and beating himself up, when all he wanted to do was tell Hunter he loved him. The best approximation of this he could manage for the moment was to press his head into Hunter’s chest with such sudden overwhelming force it knocked the breath from him for a second. Then, gently, Hunter cradled his head and began to stroke his hair. 

“It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s okay to cry. I’ve got you. Whatever you need.” 

For a long while, they sat in near-silence, each other’s only sanctuary in the darkness and the cold. Fitz sniffled, sobbed and wept in alternate rounds, as all the fear and doubt and shame and pain crashed down around him, finally safe in Hunter’s arms. Hunter stroked his hair and his back, murmuring condolences, acknowledgement and reassurances when they were called upon, but otherwise silent. Waiting for Fitz to traverse the emotional depths of something he could probably never understand, even if he knew a lot more than he did right now. Waiting, and turning over in his head, an idea. 

He’d first had the idea a long time ago; back when he’d met this shaky, disoriented boy, struggling to find his way to becoming the man he still wanted to be, amidst this violent and confusing new world. When they’d been separated, he’d given it up, thinking he’d never see Fitz again and then the magazines came, and with them humour, and with them hope. 

He’d had the idea again when they’d first escaped, adrenalin thrumming through his veins as they whipped a stolen car down the road as fast as it would go. But with Fitz holding onto the door for dear life and looking desperately close to losing the sludge that place likely called a lunch, the moment had fleeted and passed. 

Now it had reared its head a third time, and that more than anything told Hunter he was serious. That, and a feeling in his bones that he could not quite describe: a feeling of certainty and uncertainty both at once, as if their time was like sand in an hourglass, quietly slipping away, and there was no way of knowing how much there was left. It was a strange, entrancing and powerful feeling, and Hunter was not sure how much he should trust it, but by the time Fitz had fallen silent again he had made up his mind. 

“Hey,” he interrupted quietly, easing Fitz back to being an arm’s length away. “Hey, look here, I want to give you something.”

Fitz wiped his eyes and watched Hunter’s hands, as he lifted a long, thin, leather cord from around his neck. On the end was a silver pendant about the size of a dime, engraved with the figure of a man holding in his arms a young child, a book, and a lily. When Hunter held it out Fitz took it, and ran his finger over the symbols. They meant something familiar, but he could not recall what, and he frowned.

“Hartley gave this to me, ‘long time ago,” Hunter explained. “D’you remember Hartley?” 

Fitz nodded, though he didn’t remember much of her. He had only ever really known her as one of Hunter’s friends, who had died. 

“It’s St Anthony,” Hunter continued. 

“Patron Saint of lost things,” Fitz recalled. “I remember. My mum loves this guy.” 

A smile touched his lips, and he ran his finger over the pendant again. With his free hand, he wiped away a fresh round of tears. The thought of his mother, safe at home in the real world, made his heart feel warm and he leaned into Hunter again to share the feeling; his back to Hunter’s chest this time, so that they could both appreciate the pendant as Hunter continued to tell his story. 

“I want you to have it,” he said. 

“Oh, no,” Fitz protested. “I couldn’t take-“ 

Hunter folded Fitz’s hand closed around it. 

“Please?” he said. “It’ll help. I hope. To find the team, to find yourself… To keep you safe. Okay? I _want_ you to have it.” 

“Okay,” Fitz agreed. Hunter looped the strap over his neck, but he held the pendant in a loose fist, close to his chest, anyway. 

After a moment’s silence, Hunter kissed his cheek, and shuffled their sleeping bags around again. They eased back down to lying, but they didn’t bother to separate this time. Hunter kept his arms around Fitz; one with their fingers entwined, the other simply embracing him, while Fitz’s free hand still held the pendant. Hunter had his nose to the back of Fitz’s neck, so close he was all but kissing his shoulder, and their legs knotted round each other so they were just about as close as they could be. Hourglass or no hourglass, they were determined to cherish every second they had left.


End file.
